Technique issue?
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Safety Car
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 4,029
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From: Morris county Dirty Jersey
Technique issue?
so yesterday I went to photograph my goddaughter‘s soccer game and was having a problem with the camera, focusing on anything but what I wanted it to. So she is a goalie and i would try prefocusing on her but as soon as action came close the camera would jump focus to other players. Nothing big deal as she is young and it was just a regular game so nothing important missed. What i did was increase the f stop and more was in focus that way but started to struggle with diminishing light. And i did try a tracking mode but i had to select her and keep the button half pressed and at times it would still jump if another player crossed in the frame.
what says you guys?
what says you guys?
Parrothead
Joined: May 2002
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From: Margaritaville Embassy
St. Jude Donor '08-'09,'13, '14
I would say look at the matrix and reduce the points it's focusing on. also maybe look at reducing the AF sensitivity (both are options on Nikon DSLRs YMMV
Melting Slicks
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If all you need are photos of your goddaughter, maybe you could position yourself where she will be in roughly the same plane of focus and try using a pre-focused manual focus. Or use spot focus and lock it on her. It might be easier for me. I covered hundreds of weddings with a 6x6 medium format manual focus film camera. I constantly pre-focused on where I thought action was going to occur, especially on the dance floor. I also used a wide angle lens a lot, which is more forgiving when it comes to focus.
Thread Starter
Safety Car
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 4,029
Likes: 568
From: Morris county Dirty Jersey
If all you need are photos of your goddaughter, maybe you could position yourself where she will be in roughly the same plane of focus and try using a pre-focused manual focus. Or use spot focus and lock it on her. It might be easier for me. I covered hundreds of weddings with a 6x6 medium format manual focus film camera. I constantly pre-focused on where I thought action was going to occur, especially on the dance floor. I also used a wide angle lens a lot, which is more forgiving when it comes to focus.
yes I was doing my best. My problem is that we’re only allowed to be on one side of the field and she is goalie so inevitably at some point the other players are gonna cross in front of my view to her and pull focus away from her onto them because they’re moving in closer. I don’t know how to set the camera up to stay locked on her. I could manual focus, but then even she moves as she’s running out of the goal or into the goal and I am not that good with manual focused to keep up with that fast action. I might have to look into subject tracking and see how that works
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St. Jude Donor '08-'25
I think we need abit more info or we are just going to be guessing. I believe you shoot Canon so what would be helpful to diagnose would be the following info:
- What AF shooting mode?... I am assuming AI Servo but want to confirm
- What AF points are active and how many?
- What AF Case were you using the AF sub directory?
- Where you using back button focus or the shutter button for focus lock?
Thread Starter
Safety Car
Joined: Mar 2008
Posts: 4,029
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From: Morris county Dirty Jersey
I think we need abit more info or we are just going to be guessing. I believe you shoot Canon so what would be helpful to diagnose would be the following info:
- What AF shooting mode?... I am assuming AI Servo but want to confirm
- What AF points are active and how many?
- What AF Case were you using the AF sub directory?
- Where you using back button focus or the shutter button for focus lock?
i shoot sony but should be similar.
1yes, but called continuous for me
2 i tried wide which is all of them active and tried center point and also center point tracking
all work well till a player crosses in front of her then it jumps to the faster moving player
3 not sure i have that on sony but i have it on human
4 shutter button but again that isnt the issue it just jumps from the player i want to other players when they cross in front of her then it follows the new target.
Melting Slicks
Joined: Dec 2004
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Do you have a 300 mm lens? I photographed my daughter’s high school soccer games with a 70-210 2.8 lens and I do not recall having focusing problems. But my daughter was never a goalie. I photographed the whole game and captured whoever had the ball. I put the images on a CD and gave them to the coach regularly. I found out the coach was showing the images to the whole team to point out their mistakes. That was never my intention.
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St. Jude Donor '08-'25
i shoot sony but should be similar.
1yes, but called continuous for me
2 i tried wide which is all of them active and tried center point and also center point tracking
all work well till a player crosses in front of her then it jumps to the faster moving player
3 not sure i have that on sony but i have it on human
4 shutter button but again that isnt the issue it just jumps from the player i want to other players when they cross in front of her then it follows the new target.
1yes, but called continuous for me
2 i tried wide which is all of them active and tried center point and also center point tracking
all work well till a player crosses in front of her then it jumps to the faster moving player
3 not sure i have that on sony but i have it on human
4 shutter button but again that isnt the issue it just jumps from the player i want to other players when they cross in front of her then it follows the new target.
I am almost positive it is an AF tracking sensitivity issue. Canon has preset "Cases" you can select as well as manually configuring your own...pending on the level of camera you have (higher end camera will give you more fine tuning adjustability) but I am sure Sony has something similar. Below are a few basic links on how to set up for my particular camera. Also besides that (again with Canon) you can actually take a photo of the main subject matter and record the face and it will find that subject for AF priority. Lastly you could do away with all of the tech and simply just use a single AF servo point (that does not switch) and that would solve the problem. Lastly I would DEFINITLY learn how to use back button focus. IMO that is the only way to photography action photography. You want to (uncouple) the trigger release from the AF button for the very best results.
https://cam.start.canon/en/C017/guid...tics_0030.html
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St. Jude Donor '08-'25
@jerseydrew to clarify the types AF "cases" for a manual adjustment. From what you are saying you want it to say something like (these are Canon's terminology) you would want Tracking Sensitivity "low" and/or "locked on" so it stays locked on the initial subject matter for longer and ignores other objects coming into the frame. When set to "high" and/or "responsive" sensitivity the camera with continuity switch from person to person as they enter the frame.
Then you would want to set Accel/decel Tracking to to "low" if the subject does NOT move a lot like a goalie for example...but if she was a striker that moved side to side a lot in erratic motions then you would want opposite and set tracking to "high"
Hope that helps
Then you would want to set Accel/decel Tracking to to "low" if the subject does NOT move a lot like a goalie for example...but if she was a striker that moved side to side a lot in erratic motions then you would want opposite and set tracking to "high"
Hope that helps
Parrothead
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 48,231
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From: Margaritaville Embassy
St. Jude Donor '08-'09,'13, '14
i shoot sony but should be similar.
1yes, but called continuous for me
2 i tried wide which is all of them active and tried center point and also center point tracking
all work well till a player crosses in front of her then it jumps to the faster moving player
3 not sure i have that on sony but i have it on human
4 shutter button but again that isnt the issue it just jumps from the player i want to other players when they cross in front of her then it follows the new target.
1yes, but called continuous for me
2 i tried wide which is all of them active and tried center point and also center point tracking
all work well till a player crosses in front of her then it jumps to the faster moving player
3 not sure i have that on sony but i have it on human
4 shutter button but again that isnt the issue it just jumps from the player i want to other players when they cross in front of her then it follows the new target.
the AE-L AF-L button is the focus lock on Nikons
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St. Jude Donor '08-'25
I only use BB Focus for everything...in fact I have (2) separate AF Lock buttons programmed into the back of the camera (in custom functions). One is for AI Servo with moderate tracking (groups/cluster of AF points) and the other is specifically set up for tracking the human eye of the subject matter.